Operation McGill français was a large street demonstration in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, during the Quiet Revolution. Though comprising a range of trade unionists, Quebec nationalists, students and other leftists raising many different demands (along with a small contingent from McGill's CEGEP), the protest's key objective was for McGill University to become a French-speaking educational institution. The demonstration took place in Montreal on March 28, 1969 in the midst of Quebec's Quiet Revolution. On this day, approximately 10,000–15,000 protesters, gathered and walked down Sherbrooke street towards the Roddick Gates calling for McGill University to become Francophone, along with pro-worker and nationalist demands. These protesters held signs that read slogans such as "McGill aux Québécois!" and "McGill aux travailleurs", which translates to "McGill to Quebecers" and "McGill to workers" respectively. Afraid this demonstration might turn violent, 100 police officers were deployed as well as 1,300 police officers on call. Also awaiting the demonstrators at the Roddick Gates were 3,000 spectators. The demonstration was mostly peaceful, with some altercations taking place between demonstration supporters and some anglophone students who responded to the demonstration by chanting "God Save the Queen".
Background The political agenda of this demonstration largely coincided with the current of Quebec nationalist ideology that emphasised decolonisation and the construction of a socialist Francophone-dominated Quebec, especially that espoused in the political review Parti Pris. Those taking part in Opération McGill saw McGill University as a key symbol of Anglo-Saxon power in Quebec and the idea to "francise" the university coincided with the larger aim of decolonizing Quebec. Though the call to turn McGill into a French-speaking university was very popular symbolically within the far-left of the Quebec nationalist movement, there was a much broader political consensus around the need to create a network of public francophone higher educational establishments to redress both the linguistic imbalance in higher education and the lack of access for Francophone students (at the time, only three of the six publicly supported universities were French-speaking, while all universities were still privately run), something which came to fruition less than a month after "Operation McGill" with the establishment of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) as the flagship metropolitan university within the public francophone University of Quebec network. Leading the charge of this demonstration were former McGill professor Stanley Gray and nationalist Raymond Lemieux who spoke to the crowd of people demanding equal rights for francophones and also demanded that McGill become a francophone educational institution. Prior to the demonstration, key demonstrator, Stanley Gray was fired from his position as a political science professor at McGill University in 1969. However, prior to his firing, he had established a group named the Students for a Democratic University (SDU) on November 23, 1967. It consisted of 150 students and professors who were also in favour of the idea of decolonisation and instituting more power to French people not only at McGill but throughout Quebec as well. The SDU had begun many demonstrations, with each getting larger than the previous one. During the early months of 1969, before the operation, Gray and the other members of the SDU had interrupted a Senate meeting on January 24, 1969 echoing similar chants such as "Revolution", "Long live the Socialist Quebec" and "Long live Quebec". The group would then again take similar actions on January 27, 1969 when they impeded a meeting of the Assembly of the Board of Governors. Later, the SDU would be renamed as the Radical Student Association (RSA). Gray was also a founding member of the Movement for the Integration of School (MIS), who organised the demonstration on that day. The SDU and the MIS would work together for the same goals. Another key member of the MIS was Raymond Lemieux, an American with French-Canadian heritage. He, along with fellow founding member Stanley Gray would gather approximately 3,000 members leading up to the demonstration. The MIS would then strengthen the Saint-Léonard crisis when elected on June 28, 1968. The Saint-Léonard crisis largely developed from leftist thinking which disallowed bilingual classes and adopted only unilingual French classes. The campus newspaper, the McGill Daily, also supported the cause heavily and distributed a special edition announcing the preparation of Operation McGill with 100,000 copies instead of its usual 14,000 copies. In it was a document titled "Welcome to McGill" written entirely in French and sent across the province of Quebec with the aid of students and the members of the major trade union in Québec, the CSN. In short, the document criticized the ruling elites of Quebec and argued that the people of Quebec were exploited both culturally and economically. Concluding the article was the need to democratise McGill for these reasons and why workers, students and anyone who felt discriminated against should demonstrate. On March 26, 1969 activists Raymond Lemieux, Stanley Gray, Léandre Bergeron and CSN president Michael Chartrand stated that they would be talking about the Operation via posters throughout campus which would be held in the ballroom of the University Centre.
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